Consummate dilettantism!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

"buying food in a cafeteria"

China’s English T-shirts are nuts. Today I saw a woman wearing one that said “buying food in a cafeteria”, with the “i”s hearted, of course. (I want this one, actually; kinda cool in a super*-ironic way. What made it even cooler was that she actually was buying food in a cafeteria, though I doubt she put it on just for that purpose.) It’s as though throwing English on T-shirts automatically makes them cool, regardless of how meaningful the English actually is. (The Western equivalent is this.)

And I keep seeing this one T-shirt that has “British culture”, “Enquired”, and “Ask” emblazoned on a British flag, as though the cultural characteristic the British rally around most is an extremely minor and completely insignificant spelling variation (“enquire” is the more British cousin of “inquire” -- maybe the shirts are referring to an even more obscure usage distinction, but that's even more ridiculous). In fact, I doubt most Americans get this one, or even if most British do.

*This has got to be, like, super^3. I mean, this is mad super.

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